The Yemeni government expressed on Thursday its gratitude to Saudi Arabia after it announced an additional USD8 million in assistance to address the threat posed by the decaying Safter floating storage oil tanker off the coast of Yemen.
The new aid will be added to the previous USD10 million in support that was provided by the Kingdom to the United Nations-led operation to remove the oil cargo from the tanker, revealed Information Minister Muammar al-Eryani according to Yemen’s Saba news agency.
The minister hailed the Saudi gesture as a continuation of the Kingdom’s brotherly support to the Yemeni government and people.
The United Nations said on Tuesday it had started the removal of more than 1 million barrels of oil from the supertanker in a highly complex operation it hopes will ward off a regional disaster.
UN officials have been warning for years that the Red Sea and Yemen's coastline was at risk as the rusting tanker could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.
The war in Yemen caused the suspension in 2015 of maintenance operations on the Safer, which has been moored off Yemen for more than 30 years.
